Imagination to spare

Today we went to the aquarium in Long Beach, California. Gavin loved it. The scuba divers were by far the highlight for him. And I thought they might be since one of his favorite bath toys is a diver. He was a little unsure of them at first.

The first (and one of the largest) tanks had three divers in it. The diver - shown in the picture - was motioning kids to come up to the window and give him a high five. As you can see Gavin was a little hesitate. Yet he was thrilled every time we came across another tank with a diver in it. We had to go back to several tanks because they had divers. I think he enjoyed the fish too (especially the sharks).

So it really shouldn't have surprised me that he shared about his experience at the aquarium with our friends kids tonight. He told them all about the divers. The real surprise was that he convinced other kids to "play diver." Which first means you have to put gear on and get into a tank. Then it entails going up and down and pretending to do things like clean tanks, fix things, and feed fish. He also spent a lot of time waving "through the glass." He was so convincing as a diver he had several other kids want to pretend to be divers too.

I love his big imagination. I'm so grateful that we live in a place that has so much for children to do and experience. I especially enjoy seeing those experiences show up later in his play.